A recent study published by the Yelp data science team, conducted by researchers at the Harvard Business School and Columbia Law School, suggests Google is prominently displaying its own content ahead of others in organic search results. The study aims to prove Google’s actions are harming users by presenting them with inferior results to what they would otherwise find if all search results were displayed organically. In order to prove this theory, researchers from Harvard and Columbia conducted a test comparing Google’s results as they’re currently being displayed, with results determined by Google’s merit-based algorithm. Following this test, researchers came to the conclusion Google is unfairly promoting its own content ahead of content from external sources, “leaving consumers with lower quality results and worse matches.” Local Searches Skewed Most Heavily The study f...